Sometimes it happens to the nicest of people and it often happens slowly and subtly. These are the signs that you are becoming indoctrinated and you are likely annoying your loved ones at this point. I hope this helps:
*You're driven to recruit everyone you know. You may even resort to deception or outright lies to get people to meetings. Before you know it, your family and friends avoid you like the plague.
*You're encouraged to develop an unreasonable, irrational zeal for the products. Even so far as to justify the quality of toilet paper or to call the products prestigious. You may even argue the quality of energy drinks or about phyto-nutrients, something you may not even know about.
*A whole bunch of demands, promises, subtle threats of failure if you don't try hard enough are made in the promotional material and motivational seminars. i.e. If you quit, you are a loser destined to die broke and unhappy.
*Because the system is touted as the way you're going to make yourself fantastically rich, you're under pressure to drop any conflicting or competing interests such as your bowling league or golf club. Nothing else in life has importance except for the quest of financial freedom. All activities in your life must enhance your Amway business and have an affect on your financial future.
*Your upline soon becomes your most trusted friend. Your thoughts and feelings are shaped in part by the cds, meetings and functions.
Do you recognize these behaviors? Hopefully you aren't displaying these behaviors.
14 comments:
All of the behavior patterns listed above are consistent with those of a malicious cult.
Amway is not about controlling your life and your finances. Amway is about letting others control your mind, and all the details of your personal existence.
The fact that many IBOs stay in Amway for years, even after losing scads of cash (ask about Joe Cool's doctor friend), proves that there is a kind of pseudo-religious irrationality at work in Amway. Why would anyone stay in a "business" that is nothing but a money drain on you?
They stay because it is a cult, and cults are driven not primarily by the desire for more money but by psychological compulsion and irrational beliefs.
Hey Joe, if you’re reading this, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences about Amway through you blogs. I just became an IBO with them about a month ago after meeting with my ‘mentor/upline’ on a few dates and going to a free intro regional function for guests in my area. I have the say the speaker was like an emerald or something, point is he made bank and he was really charismatic/inspirational.
Unfortunately, I didn’t do much of my own research about any cons to Amway. My recruiter even told me to beware of “faceless/anonymous detractors online” compared to the “successful stories of life people from the further-ups”.
Part of what convinced me was their constant insistence that this isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme but that it would require much hard work. This led me to believe that with enough hard work i’ll be like the higher-ups in a few years.
I’m 21 yrs. old and going to college. I come from a middle-class upbringing. Recently, my recruiter has encouraging me to buy the premier membership with WWDB which right now is like $54.99 a month. Instead I got the basic membership for like $4 or something.
At that moment I realized there’s something fishy about this whole thing. My mom was the first to realize it. “$50+ a month!?” Just so I can receive some “useful” business tips and pep talks from the few lucky ones? I refused that. I’m not a business guru but even I know that this is only gonna be a drain unless you’re somehow constantly selling and recruiting left and right.
I’ve now abandoned the expectation that this was such a great idea.
What should I do? Should I just quit or continue but keep track of my costs and just focus on selling and recruiting on my own using free sources without having to buy all the expensive “tools” and function gatherings? I think the latter right now. I don’t expect to become a millionaire doing this so my goal right now is to do enough to make a decent flow by selling and/or recruit close friends and relatives who truly care about me and will do this to help me instead of making a profit off me.
Anonymous at 3:46, unless you can sell Amway products at retail, you will struggle. Their prices are high because of the IBO bonuses (30% or more). You only make the big bucks if you sell function tickets and such. You can try to sell Amway goods but if you can't beat the price at Target or Walmart, then you'll only sell to sympathetic family and friends. If you don't sell stuff, you will bleed money each and ever month to attend functions and buy audios.
The idea that you will just sell products is a great plan, but only in theory. Here is why: the products are not competitive in price with similar items available in retail. If you are interested in product sales, I would personally find a different MLM company. There are many out there where people do well retailing unique items. I do not want to recommend any particular company.
The other reason your plan will not work is: If you do recruit others, your upline will want to meet those people and begin to work "depth" under you. They will tell you they are helping you and actually they are because more volume in depth will increase your bonus percentage. The problem lies in the fact that they will promote the 54.99 package and the functions to your people. You will feel pressured to be the example and hear things like "If you don't go, your group won't go". Thus guiltily pressuring you into a "fake" leadership roll. If you do not comply, the subtle message to your downline will be that they should not look to you fro leadership because you are not "plugged in and Core". I speak from experience as someone who had hundreds of people in my organization and made very good money in this business. Pursue College and find a business on the side that is not dependent on tool flow and functions.
To Anonymous at 3:46 PM:
When Amway was started in 1959, the idea of just making money by selling the products was actually plausible. In those early days, Amway's success was not in cities but in small-town communities. An IBO could profit by selling products just to friends and neighbors, and the entire thing was a kind of friendly social connection between people who knew and trusted each other.
But that America is long gone. People are much more isolated and self-sequestered, and unattached to those around them, even in the rural areas. People don't socialize as they once did, because they can make their own fun and friends with social media and the internet. The friendly local connections that could grease the skids for a sale are simply absent today.
The bottom line? You just CAN'T make money selling Amway products to strangers. It won't work -- not in a world of high competition, price wars, discount houses, and on-line sales. You might have had a shot at it in 1959, but that's a long time ago.
Even the Amway LOS subsystems generally discourage emphasis on retail sales. They encourage self-consumption and recruitment of down-line IBOs instead. If even those guys think selling is a useless waste of time, how can you think that you'll be able to profit in Amway via sales alone?
It does happen to the nicest people. And intelligent people at that. It is sickening, literally! I hate Amway. It's a CULT and I dont care what anyone else says. What else could take a lovely young person and turn them into someone their family does not even know. Yes, it DOES Happen to the nicest people. all you can do is pray, literally. Because they will NOT listen to anyone that has anything negative (even though it's the truth) to say about Amway.
Amway makes persons cold and hard and nasty, especially to anyone not involved in the Amway cult. I've seen perfectly nice people turn into greed-driven fanatics, whose only thought in life is recruitment and sales.
Amway isn't a business. Amway is a disease.
Nearly 2 years ago my daughter got pulled into amway and WWDB. It has wrecked my life to say the least. Watching her turn
into someone I dont even know anymore. Someone who went from a caring loving person with an incredible love for her family and friends She had a zest for life and a great future ahead of her. But now she is an AMBOT. as much as it pains me to let that word come out of my mind and into print, it is the sad truth and reality. I miss my daughter and I hate amway and all the deceit. I read the book Merchants of deception shortly after she joined. And the life Eric Scheible lived is now her life. Our life. She refused to read it. Her brother is getting married soon and she has stated that if her mentors are flying into town that day she will not he able to attend the wedding because she cannot miss a meeting! My dying wish when I leave this world will be for her to walk away from amway. But then what will she have left. Nothing. No friends. No family. No husband, no kids (unless she marries an ambot). When I try to discuss this with her she says "mom. We've discussed this and i know how you feel". No. She has NO IDEA how I feel! I've watched her go from a butterfly to a cocoon. Its heartbreaking.
If your daughter has been in Amway for two years, that's a bad sign. Most sane IBOs quit in a few months.
She can't be making any significant money, so she must be bleeding funds into the Amway racket, either from her job or from support from her family.
DON'T lend her any cash. DON'T buy any Amway products from her. DON'T let her use your house for storage of materials or products. You have to be very strict about this -- if you aren't, she'll simply take cash from you endlessly, never paying it back.
Fortunately (or unfortunately in this case) she has a job that earns her a very good income and provides her "the means" to support her amway business and she lives on her own. So she does not ever ask me for money. I have however bought products from her that I actually like and have told her I'm not going to buy things I do not like just to give her PV. However, this is about to change abruptly now that I see her devaluing her family and friends on a significant level. I cannot support her in her business if that is the kind of person it is turning her into. I highly despise any company or organization that would encourage and demand their employees never ever ever miss a function or meeting. Its ridiculous! I am now prepared to to face her completely shutting me out, even though we have always been close. She is my only daughter. But I cannot assist her into doom. It is like giving drugs to an addict. This is changing the entire course of her life ������ so I guess we will see what happens when I break the news to her that I cannot co tune to order products from her.
Has your daughter signed up any down-line yet? Has she begun to build up a group of IBOs underneath her?
If she hasn't in two whole years, that will probably be the only thing that eventually convinces her of her mistake. Her Amway up-line is certainly urging her to recruit new IBOs, since that is the only real way to make money in the Amway racket. If she can't do it, all that will happen is that she'll be paying money into the scheme month after month, with nothing to show for it.
She herself will need to have 100 PV level of purchasing if she is even to qualify for a refund check. That demands about $300 worth of purchases a month. If you are her only non-Amway customer, and you stop buying, then she will have to buy $300 of Amway stuff every month.
Regardless of her job, shelling out $3600 per year for nothing will eventually take its toll. Don't buy any more Amway stuff from her. Tell her you're through. This is the most merciful thing you can do now for your daughter.
She has built up a team downline. But that is due to her ENDLESS pursuit of recruits. She goes out to malls, coffee shops etc overnight after work. She has no social life whatsoever and and not spend a dime on any kind of personal enjoyment or entertainment. It's sad really. She used to really enjoy her circle of friends and they had so much fun. Living the dream. Young, single, good income. Enjoying what should be some of the best years. Now she does NOTHING unless it's related to her pursuit of going diamond and which at that point she can help her family (which we dont need help) she is the kind of person who dies not give up until her goal is accomplished, so she possibly could go diamond. But the sacrifices on the way there are immense. And I don't think she realizes that its not going to end. Ever.
Well, it sounds like your daughter is "CORE," which means she has become totally hypnotized by the Amway cult.
If so, it will never end. Because in Amway, even being a Diamond does not mean you can stop. You must work more intensely every day, or else your down-line will evaporate. Diamonds never retire.
I sure wish I could talk to you. I too have lost my daughter to Amway and we are completely devastated! Your post stated our situation all the way down to our sons wedding day. My email is charjudd@aol.com please reach out to me if you feel comfortable with talking about it. Thanks so much for your post. Its validation I'm not crazy!
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